Oh, I say finish it...it is literature (and other sources) that will help keep the darkroom and other long lost treasures alive!
I have read many of your books and shared them with my students - I met you last year when you came to Collegiate in Richmond, it was a pleasure. Thanks for all you do for the world of young adult lit...I think we teachers are honored to share your work with our students!

You could just set the book in 1979, although you might have to add a bit of explanation regarding the darkroom concept for younger readers. Could be interesting though!

i agree with Lindsay...finish it. I'm 69 and would like to see things of my youth preserved in novels. Bryce Courtney does that all the time, athough in a different culture. I'd love to read your completed "Grab Shot". By the way, love your blog. Audrey Albinger, student of Institute of Children's Literature, Conn.

Agree agree agree. Finish it! Whether you set it in the past or set up the protagonist as a photographic purist (struggling against the flashy digital modernity?) your readers will either know what you're talking about or learn something new, which is never a bad thing. You already have me hopelessly intrigued.

I saw my niece for the first time since I gifted her two of your signed books for Christmas - her response was that she is "totally addicted to that author"...just the response I expected. As commencement at Saint Mary's approaches, we think of your visit fondly, Best regards, Susan

Grab Shot.. mmm... unfinished... mmm..
I recently finished reading the "unfinished" Pale King by David Foster Wallace (I'm lucky that I have access to review copies of some books.) It was set in the 1980's. However, It's not supposed to be a historical novel thus various terms like 'xerox' and 'pay phone' and lack of cell phones, and a Gremlin (the car) makes it feel 'dated,' although of course it is an unfinished work. Brilliant writing, nonetheless.
Grab Shot... I imagine part of the challenge might be, I think, that the writer then, is probably not the writer now. Not better or worse, just a different person? I suspect, with different sensibilities? John Barth did revise some of his published works (either Fun house of Chimera.. can't recall) but I guess that's different...
Interestingly though, when I was about five or six, I wondered into a darkroom and watched with amazement an image magically appear on a blank piece of paper immersed in water... and it looked just like me. I think that's why nearly twenty years later I became a photojournalist. Go figure..
Cheers!

Gremlin! Who remembers THAT?
Yes, I think you are quite right, Oscar. Different time, different person, different writer. No interest in going back in time and taking up old stuff. But it has been fascinating reading it.

Why not finish it? I'd certainly read it if it was published, especially since I love your books. It seems like a good plot, why not give it a shot? It's the chemistry of something long gone that will attract people!

You should finish the book. I am the kind of person who has to finish a job once I started, so if I start reading a book, I don't let it until is finished, even I don't like the subject and doesn't seem so interesting.

Please write it anyway! You could just set it in 1979/1980. It sounds fascinating, and I'd love to read it!

Your fans are cheering you on.....C'mon you'll always be wanting to write a new book anyway....right? Sounds like you've got the outline already. Your very creative so maybe rework all those ideas within it..? Give it a shot. What have you got to lose?